3 years ago
Tyrosine hydroxylase coordinates larval-pupal tanning and immunity in oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis)
Dan-Dan Wei, Pei-Jin Yang, Guy Smagghe, Zhao Liu, Qiu-Li Hou, Er-Hu Chen, Jin-Jun Wang, Wei Dou
BACKGROUND
The oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), is a notorious world pest infesting fruit and vegetable, which has evolved high level of resistance to many commonly used insecticides. In this study, we investigated whether tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) that is required for cuticle tanning (sclerotization and pigmentation) in many insects, could be a potential target in controlling B. dorsalis.
RESULTS
We cloned TH cDNA (BdTH) of B. dorsalis, and the complete open reading frame of BdTH (KY911196) was 1737 bp in length, encoding a protein of 578 amino acids. Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed that BdTH was highly expressed in the epidermis of 3rd instar larvae, and its expression increased prior to pupation, suggesting a role in larval-pupal cuticle tanning. When we injected dsBdTH or 3-iodo-tyrosine (3-IT) as TH inhibitor or fed insect diet supplemented with 3-IT, there was a significant impairment of larval-pupal cuticle tanning and severe obstacle to eclosion in adults followed by death of most. Furthermore, injection of Escherichia coli in 3-IT-fed larvae resulted in 92% mortality and the expression of four antimicrobial peptide genes was significantly downregulated.
CONCLUSION
These results suggest that BdTH might play a critical role in larval-pupal tanning and immunity of B. dorsalis, which could be used as a potential novel target for pest control.
Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi
DOI: 10.1002/ps.4738
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